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I think quests are needed, whatever form they take, to give you some direction and to add immersion and life to the game world.

As someone else said, they shouldn't be designed around your character being "the" hero, though. In the example of EQ's epic weapons, what irked me was it was written as though your character was the only one in Norrath who was working on this quest, and you'd have the only weapon in existence... It should have just been something more akin to "If you are able to collect these rare, fabled items, I can create a totes awesome scimitar that farts leaves"

Also, tasks, such as "We're trying to rebuild our village and need buttloads of wood, iron, etc..." are passable. They give you something to do, some experience, some monetary reward, and it makes sense that numerous players would be doing the same thing.

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I prefer a combonation of GW2 and EQ.. The only quest I want to see exist in a MMORPG are "epic" quest such as those that existed in EQ.. As for mob encounters I only want to see dynamic events (GW2), camp locations (EQ) or general roaming mobs.. I also prefer "turn in" rewards like those we had in EQ (deathfist belts).. What we see in WoW and other games since are nothing more then chores and task.. I find those linear as hell because they split up the playing community.. People are seldom on the same phase or questline, and because of this, most don't group up.. I actually find the use of questing to be anti social..

GW2 does address this using DE's and adjustable character level, however it still doesn't tackle the need for people to group up.. IMO if we really want to see the need for people to group up outside of instance, there needs to be static locations of action.. such as EQ camps.. Camps need to be too hard for anyone to solo, but a little more rewarding for the desire to want to do them.. OH, and there needs to be enough of them so that multiple groups aren't fighting over them.. Furthermore camping a location needs to generate equal amount of rewards, if not people will still take whatever route rewards them the best..

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Real quests? As in, quests before WoW, where they weren't the primary way to level up? Yeah, they were great. They fleshed out the world, helped you discover new places, new mobs, gave you unique loot now and then, and gave you some difficult puzzles to solve.

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It's very boring compared to single player games like skyrim, dishonoured & farcry 3.

I'd give a partial exception to tsw with its multistage 20 minute long one at a time quests and for bringing in puzzle and stealth elements and dropping quest hubs like gw2. Unfortunately end game was same old same old as were the item quests.

I'm currently playing tsw and find the quests absolutely brilliant, however the problem with it is that the quests are very single layer focussed so it ends up being a single player game with other people around. I truely believe that story is a way foward,however game devellopers need to find a way of telling amazing stories which takes plce in a truly multiplayer environment. I think guild wars 2 had the right idea, they just didn't get it quite right...

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Originally posted by Helleri

@OP

As a Runescaper, I don't see the 'quests' in most MMO's as real Quests to begin with.

But the Quest as the only means to level is truly becoming an epidemic. Even if you don't believe them as true Quests, they are indeed Quests that is being used in Everywhere now. Thats why I think its a problem.

Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.

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Originally posted by ShakyMoDavis Vanilla wow had some good class quests, to get warrior stances, shamen totem, warlock pets etc..

For some bizarre reason they dropped them, always thought that was one if the better things in wow.

I think the totem quests were still in teh game last time i play.

They did not make more for obvious reasons ... it is more cost effective to make one quests for all players, instead of just some players that play a certain class. That is the same reason why they have 3 levels of difficulties in raids.

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Quests in Pen and Paper RPG, and Single player games work because you can start and finish it whenever you want. Either with a group of friends when playing PnP, or by yourself.

But in MMO, Quests are shorten so that other players you meet during your quest can join in without being left out., or they become Instanced Quests that only people at that certain stage can join in.

How many times have you, yourself try to play with your guildmates but found out that they are two stages ahead of you in the quest, or you are ahead and have to wait for them.

So my question is, are Quests still viable in Modern Day MMO's

Are they the only way to get Progress within a story?

Guild wars 2 changed the quest system alittle, so that as long as you are in the vicinity, the quest automatically goes into your log, so anyone can jump in and participate.

But is that as far as we can take it?

Can Quests be eliminated all together?

What kind of alternatives is available?

I do not see how making quests more accessible is progress. The idea that anyone else can do the quest that I am on or that I can do the quest that anyone else is on is just another step towards negating any differences between players.

Quests that progress stories could be linear, such as being able to do one quest after the next. One quest is a prerequisite to do the next quest and this could continue for some time to complete one story. Most quests do not tell stories. They are just there for you to play fetch and be led along by the nose. Quests that tell stories could be totally soloable or require groups to complete. If the quests are soloable then who cares if you want to play with guildmates or not. It's a superfluous question if you don't NEED quildmates. If a quest is meant for groups then there will always be someone somewhere who also needs to do the quest to progress, since they will have to do it to progress the story too. Or the guild could hold an event for one night every week where they do a certain quest that people need. This promotes group conent way more than making quests for accessible for anyone to do.

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Originally posted by muffins89

Originally posted by Quirhid

Well, events in GW2 are a promising step forward, but even when they have no traditional quests at all in that game, I see the tasks ("heart symbols") as a step between quests and events. I don't see traditional quests enjoying much popularity in the future, atleast not in the traditional form. Heavy quest grinding gets exhausting fairly quickly. Alteast I had an unpleasant reaction to the Continent of the Ninth's excessive use of trivial miniquests for what felt like everything you did. Didn't like that at all...

Arenanet talked about having multiple end states in the events (more than pass/fail), with which you could build elaborate webs of events rather than just separate strings of events (which are essentially a form of quest-lines). However, the downside to this would be the same as with all branching content: it takes a lot of effort to produce those alternate paths.

Still, I wouldn't mind using quests for a more long term goal or objective - only a few active at any given time.

i disagree that events are a "promising step forward". they are nothing more than traditional quests in a different wrapper. i played gw2 today and an event i did was escorting a lady around while she collected fruit. i would rather collect the damn fruit myself. DE's in gw2 are just kill x, gather x, go to x, quests presented a different way.

quests are still viable imo. they've just become to trivial and meaningless. give me a quest that is an actual QUEST. make me travel a great distance. make the quest take days to complete. make me complete many smaller quests in order to complete the main quest.

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Quests are necessary to move a story, and to give players some goals to strive for, so I say they're still a good concept. But as far as presentation goes, GW2's event system is the way to go, or much better, a (really polished) Radiant system like in TES. From the moment I played my first MMO it felt weird to encounter a quest giver who needs help saving his town from wolves but only ask me to kill 10 of them...and the town will actually never be saved. In SRPGs the devs can make the world move along with you so the town can be saved. In GW2 the town will be saved for a short time until the event triggers again; and in phasing MMOs (SWTOR, WoW), the town remains saved permanently at the cost of you getting disconnected from other players, an effect I find highly undesirable for a MMO.

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I've not read all the replies so someone may have already said this. I think they are a good concept. They just aren't good as a primary means of leveling. In pen and paper the majority of you experience comes from the rp/combat/puzzle/trap encounters, but not from actually finishing the quest. I usually reward xp at the end of the session based on those things. I could care less if they succeed in the quest or not. The quests are there for immersion purposes. I would like to see similar in games. Obviously rewarding xp for RP is a bit far fetched in a MMO, but the rest are doable. Let the quest occasionally have a reward (decorative, componant, monetary, or something), but the normal reward not be xp or gear. I am ok with gear sometimes, but I prefer the gear to be a player crafted thing. Get rid of the quest hubs, and the short kill x whatevers and make actual quests. Make them long in depth chains that tell a story. Another player can hop in at anytime and contribute (just like in pen and paper). They may not get all the details, but they contribute to their part and help craft their characters story. I guess I am describing more of a world type deal, but thats what I envisioned from these games when I made the leap to them. One day I hope to see it fullfilled.

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I think quests should be a bit more dynamic.

Lets say an NPC needs some ingredients gathered from the woods. Well, you go gather the ingredients, and turn them in. Well, the NPC no longer needs any more of that ingredient, so there's a global cooldown on that particular quest, but the NPC has a bunch of other ingredients that need gathered, so you, or some other people gather other ingredients and whatnot. If the NPC has no more tasks, no problem, there are more NPC in the area who do.

So essentially, it makes it a bit more intereting and a bit more challenging.

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Questing is good. I like getting entangled in some awesome spanning plot that drives me to do things. Stepping outside of the box in quest design is good too. Perfect World had a really awesome quest type, for example. They were platforming quests that you'd find in a city. You had a certain amount of time to get to a chest and loot it. But the chest wasn't just sitting in some really easy to path to place, most times you had to do it over and over trying to even find a way to scale the terrain up to it. One had me jump from a box to a tent to a rooftop then leap over a few fallen pillars and catch a broken section of wall before I could leap up to the catwalk the chest sat on. It was fun, it took you away from the kill x mentality for awhile and let you really appreciate the world and how much thought went into the city itself.

EDIT : Entangled not Intangled. How in the sunny hell did that one slip by me and my spellcheck??

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The only thing I used quests for in any game was to get some idea of the NPC stories or the lore.

I do have a habit of clicking next,next,next but only when the writing becomes labored reading or my mood suits me - blame it on Windows installations if you like, I do sometimes.

In reality, I don't really care about the NPC stories unless they are especially intriguing because I stopped reading fiction books years ago. I found too often that they filled my head with non facts and things that were difficult to discuss with someone that had not read the same book. Other than participating in imaginary gossip or moral lessons, I don't really understand the reasoning behind fiction books now. My morals are fine, I don't need enlightenment on how to act at this age. Instead when I read about history, that can be littered with fun facts/trivia that are great conversation movers and the moral lessons are much better because they involved a real person if they are needed for conversation.

Probably why I favor sandbox type games without quests all over. I would care more about quests if playing them different ways adjusted the game. An alignment system is a good way to explain it - if I can help or harm and that would change the outcome of the game I was given - good. The problem with this system though is that again, because of morals, most people want to reward good actions and punish bad ones. Maybe I want to toy with being bad, mud pie eating, sailor mouthed, disgusting and foul being that farts in church. Maybe I want to live out grumpy cat in roleplaying - http://m5.paperblog.com/i/31/315954/grumpy-cat-L-E6zf8F.jpeg What would my reward be for such actions, probably not the kingdom the way most games play out. Even playing horde in wow, alliance people seemed to believe that they were the good guys and me the bad just because I chose the darker ways.

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Quest are ok in games, but what we call quests in mmorg are side quest in sp games. When a sp game has 50 side quests for each smal part of the main story you tend to get tired of em. Its the same for mmorpg.

Another problem with questing in mmorpg is how unfriendly they are to do as coop/group, the system realy want you to do em alone and it works a little against the purpose of mmorpg. We all like to be able to solo em now and then, but alot of us also want to have company when we do em.